Chick Pushing Sanctioned Day Laborer Program

Despite hostility directed toward undocumented workers, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick says she is working with immigrant activists to create a city-sanctioned day laborer program.

“I’m interested in having a day laborer site in my district,” Chick told an audience of about 250 Reseda, Winnetka and west Van Nuys residents at a Wednesday night forum in Reseda.

Chick’s comments came after many in the crowd of primarily middle-aged Anglos expressed anxiety over day laborers, street vendors and a controversial policy that limits Police Department cooperation with immigration authorities.

While sympathetic to the group’s concerns, Chick called for a better understanding of the complex immigration issue, a position that won her no applause from the crowd--unlike her denunciation of city water rates and pay hikes for Department of Water and Power workers.

Chick said city-run day laborer sites in North Hollywood and San Pedro “have been effective in clearing up a lot of problems” caused by workers crowding street corners trying to hail cars and trucks. At these sites, social services and job training are offered.

While such sites can help regulate day laborer activities, Chick warned the audience that people such as themselves are quick to resist having day laborer sites in their neighborhoods and often believe that laborers are all undocumented workers when “many are citizens.”

Chick is weighing a proposal to use a Canoga Park property owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as a day laborer site. She said she intends to hold a meeting soon to test community reaction to this proposal.

“There’s been a lot of community concern about the MTA plan,” Karen Constine, Chick’s chief deputy, said later. “But we’re looking at other opportunities too.”

Chick plans to seek the advice of CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights in Los Angeles, an immigrant advocacy group, on how to deal with the day laborer situation in her district, Constine added. CHIRLA runs a program at Fallbrook Avenue and Ventura Boulevard--a well-known, informal day laborer site in Woodland Hills--to sensitize laborers to local residents’ concerns, Constine said.

Three weeks ago, Chick asked police to crack down on illegal activities by workers gathered at the Fallbrook Avenue-Ventura Boulevard site.

“We are asking for a strict enforcement policy,” Chick wrote, while trying to distinguish between those loitering at the site and those seeking legitimate work.

In reply to a question, Chick pledged to ask the council to consider amending a 1990 policy that restricts police cooperation with immigration officials after police have arrested an undocumented person for a crime. Anti-immigration groups have targeted the policy for repeal, contending criminal suspects in the country illegally should be deported.

But Chick said she was not proposing that the Police Department be given a free hand to “stop people on the basis of their skin color.”